


Scars Hurt Less In The Light

by Sparklefists



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, i guess, moderate fluff, or rather, the aftermath thereof
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 08:58:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7041652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sparklefists/pseuds/Sparklefists
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Malik has visible and invisible scars, and tonight, he lets Ryou see both. (Post-canon)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scars Hurt Less In The Light

 

 

Ryou wakes suddenly, with a prickling feeling of something wrong, out of place. The room is dark, his clock is ticking sleepily past 3 am, Malik's weight dips the mattress beside him. Shit, the room is dark...

 

Ryou shifts up on an elbow to look past Malik's sleeping body to the lantern, as if he could tell what caused it to go out in the near-total darkness, even with his reasonably good night-vision.

 

He sighs and closes his eyes, making a mental note to buy more lamp oil, when he realises it wasn't the darkness that woke him.

 

Malik _shudders_ , tight and tense, then stills again, and Ryou knows in an instant it was a shudder that woke him. He shifts closer to Malik, unsure, and his long hand hovers over Malik's shoulder.

 

“Malik?” A whisper. He touches him, barely, and can feel that every muscle is wound tight. A little louder, “Malik!”

 

Malik moans, shuddering again, his skin tinged with sweat … and suddenly screams. Ryou grabs him, wrapping his arms tight around Malik's twitching body and babbling.

 

“Malik, wake up! It's me, it's Ryou, you're safe, wake up! Malik!”

 

Ryou can tell when Malik snaps into wakefulness because his twitching and kicking turns to shivers all at once.

 

“Ryou...?”

 

“I'm here.” He doesn't let go, holding Malik close.

 

Malik takes a deep breath, but it doesn't seem to dissipate any of the tension in his body; he feels stiff and taut in Ryou's arms.

 

“... Can you please turn on the light?” The words all tumble out in a rush and Ryou realises Malik's embarrassed.

 

“Of course, hold on.” He literally holds on, keeping a tight hold of Malik's hand as he stretches out of bed, one foot on the floor, to hit the lightswitch, unwilling to leave Malik alone in the darkness even for a moment.

 

Malik's skin is oddly pale, in the too-normal overhead light, and gleaming with a sheen of sweat. His eyes are averted from Ryou, his cheeks flushed as though with a fever, too stark against his ashy pallor. His back to Ryou as he murmurs his thanks.

 

Ryou lies back down, hesitantly dropping a hand onto Malik's shoulder to rub through his thin shirt.

 

“You're so tense.” He pauses, then tries to sound casual. “When I get nightmares like that, I shake so hard I feel boneless.”

 

Malik doesn't move, doesn't seem to get less tense, but it feels like something shifts under Ryou's hand. The silence stretches so long that Ryou wonders if Malik's managed to fall back asleep still holding himself so stiffly, but then he takes a breath.

 

“I feel tense for hours, after. Like I can't unlock my muscles, like I can't relax even for a moment. My back is the worst, it locks up, tight, Isis said--” He cuts off and Ryou waits silently, still stroking Malik's shoulder with firm, soothing strokes. Malik's voice is much smaller, softer, almost child-like, when he continues. “Isis said the nightmares started when I was healing, and I would tense up to stop myself from pulling on the wounds, moving my back hurt too much, even in my sleep, but the nightmares would take me so strongly, like they're shaking my whole body. She said Rishid used to hold me down, the first few nights, so I wouldn't tear my wounds open and start bleeding again but it wasn't necessary. But now my back is healed, and I'm still locking up. ... Now they're both dead, but they're still waiting for me in the darkness.”

 

Ryou squeezes Malik's shoulder and resumes his rubbing, it's as much to reassure himself as to reassure Malik that he's here. “I'm sorry about the lamp, I'll get more oil and we can sleep with the light on for the rest of the night, I know--”

 

He's interrupted by a soft moan from Malik and freezes, worried, until he realises Malik's shoulder has started to relax under Ryou's insistent rubbing.

 

“Oh!” He starts again, a little bolder, firmer, deliberately trying to massage Malik's tight muscles. “Does that help?”

 

Malik hums and rolls onto his front.

 

“Can you keep going?” he asks hopefully, and Ryou smiles, delighted.

 

“Of course, just let me...” Ryou shifts to kneel up on the bed and swing a leg over Malik's thighs, perching behind him. He slides his hands firmly up Malik's back and starts to massage him in earnest through his shirt.

 

“Wait.”

 

Ryou stops, hands resting on Malik's shoulderblades. Malik hesitates again, Ryou can see him deliberating with himself.

 

Then suddenly Malik is shifting forward and kneeling up to take off his shirt, and Ryou's breath catches in a soft gasp; Malik never exposes his back if he can help it, not when the overhead light is on and Ryou will be behind him, certainly. Ryou's seen the markings before, they're familiar as the shirt exposes them, like a curtain rising. But he's never touched them, never examined them. Glimpses as Malik showers or dresses or pulls Ryou under the sheets to enjoy each other's bodies, but never cold exposure in the light.

 

Malik lies back down, shirt tossed aside, his secrets laid bare to Ryou.

 

Ryou settles back into place, and hesitates as Malik did.

 

“May I?” He knows Malik wouldn't have stripped off if he didn't want Ryou to see, to touch, but the glyphs on Malik's perfect skin are too sacred – to Malik, to Ryou, not to some Pharonic destiny or ancient tribe – to simply touch without permission.

 

“Please.” Malik's voice is quiet and soft again, and Ryou doesn't need to be told twice; he leans forward and starts to work.

 

His fingers are cool but they warm quickly with Malik's heat and the effort of work. He has no idea what he's doing, so he does what comes naturally, rubbing circles with his thumbs, lines with the heels of his hands, figures-of-eight with delicate fingers.

 

He's tired, but he can't close his eyes; the scars are too beautiful, too dramatic, dark and vivid against Malik's rich brown skin. Ryou's skin is milk-white, especially in comparison, his fingers look so stark against Malik's back.

 

Ryou wonders if other people saw Malik's back like a page, a canvas for the writing it bears. He knows Malik's back from touch, from gripping his shoulders in sweat-slicked ecstasy, from fingers slipping under his shirt in playful teases, from brushing against him in the semi-dark in the summer heat. The scars were there, but they weren't glyphs or shapes, they were furrows and ridges, texture over the planes of Malik's muscle and bone, just another part of him, like the trail of soft hair below his stomach, or the hard ridge of his collarbones, or the fullness of his lower lip.

 

He keeps working, gratified by every slow inch of unwinding, uncoiling, unlocking.

 

Until Malik is softly relaxed, half-dozing under Ryou's warm hands, and Ryou's effortful motions slowly trail to languid tracing, long fingers drawing over every scar, rewriting every glyph with soft fingertips.

 


End file.
